


Fraternising

by Erika_K



Series: One-shot Collection [3]
Category: Magdalena Eriksson & Pernille Harder, Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:20:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22516906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erika_K/pseuds/Erika_K
Summary: Initially I actually suggested this story idea to cupidwriter a while ago, because I thought at the speed I’m writing it would take years until I myself could make anything out of it, because I had several other things planned before this one. But in the end it kind of jumped the queue and all other stories had to wait… So here we go...
Relationships: Magdalena Eriksson/Pernille Harder
Series: One-shot Collection [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1569001
Comments: 5
Kudos: 69





	Fraternising

**Author's Note:**

> Initially I actually suggested this story idea to cupidwriter a while ago, because I thought at the speed I’m writing it would take years until I myself could make anything out of it, because I had several other things planned before this one. But in the end it kind of jumped the queue and all other stories had to wait… So here we go...

**During a not-specified international tournament that both Sweden and Denmark qualified for**

No, Pernille, no! Simply no! There is a reason why it's supposed to be like this! It's not a "rules are rules!"-rule. It's a rule someone came up with because it makes sense. Because things work best this way and wouldn't work just as well, if you did it differently!

Pernille had never given a shit about what people might think of her but she wasn't a rebel either. Because - in most cases - the rules she was expected to stick to made sense. And it was stupid to break rules like that. So she didn’t.

But now… She was really suffering here! Even though she had to admit this rule was reasonable!

During the tournament you were supposed to focus on what you were here for: Playing football and winning!

The team as a group needed to function as perfectly as possible. You had to be able to interact with these people under pressure within seconds across a whole football field. In the end that could make the difference between a seat on an early plane home or a medal around your neck.

Your teammates were the people you had to concentrate on now. So you spent a lot of time together, also outside of trainings and games.

It wasn't an actual defined rule, but most of the time that was not organised as team activity you were expected to spend with your teammates anyway, split up in smaller groups maybe, but still with them.

There were free afternoons as well of course, where you also could meet friends and family, people that might be here to support you for the matches. You met up for a coffee, for a walk, maybe for dinner. But that was it.

You shouldn't involve your visitors too much into the group of your teammates, either. It changed the group dynamic, when someone from the outside came in.

Yes, that’s how it was supposed to be: Little windows of time where you could meet others, but then you were expected to get back together with the team. Play football with them, train with them, spend time with them, eat with them and spend the night at the team’s hotel, in your room that your shared with a teammate.

And - and this was Pernille’s problem right now - due to the undeniable fact that they had different passports her girlfriend wasn’t her teammate and consequently she didn’t share her room with her but with one of her Danish teammates who had just fallen asleep in the bed beside her.

Magda, on the other hand, was in a different room, in a different hotel with one of her teammates and considering the text messages that had started to appear on Pernille’s phone, she missed Pernille just as much as Pernille missed her.

They were used to not being together by now. It had been their normal for over two years now, so why was this so difficult?

Well, usually they knew they were miles apart and that they would just be seeing each other via video calls for the next few weeks. Usually, when she longed for Magda, it was obvious that there was nothing that could be done about that right now.

Here they knew that they were in the same town. Pernille knew that it wasn't half a day of travel that separated them but a 10 minute walk. If there weren't any other things to consider there would be nothing that could have kept her from to just go and be with her right now.

Additionally they saw each other every few days. Which - considering how rarely they saw each other otherwise - had been great in the beginning. They had been very happy about this. They had used their free afternoons to spend time together, joined by their families or friends that were here as well.

They sometimes had met together with the others’ teammate, which often lead to some jokes about that no one should blab on secret tactics, but no one really had a problem with this, because basically they all knew each other in some way. The rivalry just applied to the football playing while otherwise many of them were good friends.

But all of that had been limited as it was supposed to be, and every time they had to say goodbye again the hugs had grown longer and the kisses more passionate. 

They had started to aim for some alone time together. Some days ago they had coffee with Magda’s family. When they walked back afterwards they let themselves fall behind from the others. Magda’s dad had turned around to see, if they had accidently lost them, but had apparently realised that they purposely stayed behind and didn’t wait to let them catch up. 

When they had to part, they stopped at a distance from the others and hugged for a long time. “Can’t you come with me?” Magda had whispered in Pernille’s hair. Pernille had just smiled at her wistfully. They both knew the answer to this.

When they closed up to the others to say goodbye to Magda’s family, her sister sympathetically clapped their shoulders. “You’ll see each other again in a few days!” Apparently they were pretty obvious.

Today it had been just them from the beginning. They ended up in a park, lay on the lawn, as out of sight as possible from people passing by. It turned into a full blown make out session.

They had seriously considered to sneak back to one of their hotel rooms and seize the opportunity that the teammates they shared the room with were probably out as well.

They had decided against it. They weren’t aware that there really was a rule against bringing other people to your hotel, but it was certainly not exactly intended that way. Considering that there were always people around - teammates, staff accompanying the team, press even - they would hardly get unnoticed. People would put two and two together and it felt quite humiliating that they had to sneak up to one of their rooms during the day to get what they wanted.

This was supposed to be a problem for horny teenagers with overly concerned parents or overly annoying younger siblings! But nothing you should have to deal with as a grown-up in an established long-term relationship that literally the whole world knew about!

Pernille stared into the darkness of the room. She vividly remembered the weight of Magda’s body pressing her into the grass. Magda’s mouth slowly finding its way down her neck. Their hands wandering everywhere… everywhere that was halfway reasonably in the limited privacy of a secluded spot in a public park…

Fuck! No, the fact that they saw each other so regularly right now, didn’t make this easier at all!

Her phone lit up again. “If you were here I would continue where we stopped this afternoon!”

Pernille closed her eyes and shook her head.

“I’m sure you would, but I’m not there!”

“But if you were, I would..." Pernille tried to not finish reading the message, but of course she did anyway.

No! Not this again!

Also during their facetime calls at home, when they were reassuring each other of just how much they missed each other, it happened to come up what they would like to do, if they were together right now... And things developed from there...

Well, there obviously were no nightly talks on the phone when you shared a room with someone else, even less so that the phone calls drifted off in that direction. So messaging it was...

They had done this a few nights back already. She had just been happy that her roommate had slept deeply and soundly. Things would have really gotten embarrassing otherwise...

She had been pretty impressed by Magda’s ability to find the right wording to keep even sexting classy somehow, but anyway, this was really not what she wanted. Just a case of desperate measures in desperate times.

Another text. Apparently Magda hadn't wanted to wait for an answer anymore.

"Imagine that I…" Yes, she imagined that immediately… Thanks a fucking lot, Magda! She was really trying to get a grip here!

"Stop it!"

"You can stop reading... But obviously you don't!"

They should have gone to the hotel this afternoon after all! That would certainly have been a more elegant solution than this! They had some free time tomorrow again. So maybe tomorrow...

But that didn’t help now! She wanted her now! 

She gave in and started to type a suitable answer, when Magda's next message already lit up.

"Frido fell asleep on the sofa in the team room. I’m alone! You want to come over?"

Pernille stared at her phone. Did she WANT to come over? Yes, definitely, but that wasn't really the question! Did she think it was a good idea to come over…?

"You're crazy!"

"Crazy for you!"

Pernille rolled her eyes.

"Seriously!? I’m used to better chat-ups from you!"

"Please! Come!"

"No!"

"It's THE chance tonight! Now or never!"

They actually had a pretty casual day tomorrow. Getting a little less sleep tonight wouldn’t be sooooo terrible. And she didn’t exactly feel that she would sleep very well tonight anyway considering she couldn’t get her thoughts off certain things. 

No, she wouldn't do that! It was ridiculous and it simply wouldn't be right to put herself above the rules when she expected everyone else to stick to it!

Everyone here was separated from their partners for the time of this tournament. If they all started to sneak in their significant others into the hotel while evicting their designated roommate things would get out of hand pretty soon.

If she as the team captain started to break the rules, a dam was cracking. There were younger, less experienced players, who maybe wouldn’t have the appropriate judgment to limit things to the nights where they could afford a little less sleep. Their team's performance would suffer. Their team dynamic would change with all the girlfriends and boyfriends that would constantly show up.

No, she should not make an exception for herself from a rule that she knew was right!

On the other hand... She and Magda were in a special situation. They saw each other so rarely otherwise, too. Maybe... Considering that their situation was different from most of the others’… Maybe it was ok to skip the rules for once.

"Please, Pernille, I really miss you!"

No, sexy innuendos this time. Just this raw admission. Pernille melted.

"I'm coming."

‘This is stupid!’, she told herself again and again, while she was hastily putting on her training pants in the darkness.

Her phone lit up again.

“Seriously?”

“Yes, or don’t you want me to?”

“Yes, of course!”

She silently closed the door, when she left the room to not wake her teammate. 

If someone saw her hurrying down the stairs and through the lobby, maybe they would think, she had trouble sleeping and was on her way to a little late night run… She would be able to find an explanation for what she was doing here. But she didn’t meet anyone.

She half-jogged through the town to the hotel where the Swedish team was staying.

She stopped some distance from the hotel entrance. Well, she hadn’t thought this through. She would have had an explanation if someone had caught her in their hotel. But how would she explain what she was doing in the Swedish team’s hotel in the middle of the night? She probably wouldn’t have to explain much, everybody would know, of course.

It was pretty empty everywhere now, but some of the people working here were certainly around. She probably wouldn’t even get in without being asked who she was here to see. How discrete would the porter be?

She took her phone out.

“Is there any other way in than through the main entrance?”

“I don’t know. I suppose there are back entrances, but I’ve got no idea if they’re open now. Shall I come down?”

Pernille cursed.

“No, that would just attract even more attention. Stay where you are!”

She casually walked up to the entrance and cast a glance into the lobby through the glass door. Despite two people at the reception there was a guy sitting in the lobby. He looked vaguely familiar.

“Is it possible that one of your PTs is sitting in the lobby?!”

“Maybe... I think he mentioned once that he had trouble sleeping…”

Fuck!

What would happen if they got caught? She had no idea if there actually were any defined consequences for breaking the rules. She assumed no one really expected that to happen in the first place, because this wasn’t middle school but a group of professionals who were supposed to stick to the rules because the rules were reasonable, not because there were consequences...

Did she and Magda really want to be the ones who actually needed consequences?

This had been a stupid idea to begin with. She should skip this altogether!

That she and Magda were in an extraordinary situation was a total scam anyway. Many of their teammates were in the same situation. If she was honest, she knew that! So the excuse she had used to allow herself this special treatment wasn’t true anyway. She should really go home!

On the other hand… She wanted this! So much! And now she was here anyway! So what the hell!

“Where’s your room?”

“Right hand side around the corner. I’ll get on the balcony.”

Pernille sneaked across the lawn behind the hotel’s parking place. This was getting more and more ridiculous. She turned around the corner.

Yes, there she was. In the dim light that reached over here from the streetlamps she could see a figure on a balcony on the first floor. And below the balcony - if there was a God, this certainly was a sign of approval for their endeavour - there were climbing plants covering the hotel’s wall supported by a wooden trellis that certainly looked stable enough for Pernille’s plan.

She looked up again. She recognised Magda’s silhouette in the dim light. She smiled up at her even if she knew that she certainly couldn’t see that in the darkness. The silhouette raised her hand in a discreet wave.

Ok, here we go! Pernille cursed silently, while she tried to climb up the trellis without getting scratched too badly by whatever plant this might be. No rose, thankfully, but still not exactly fun either… She almost lost grip when one of the branches that had been stuck somewhere loosened due to her movement and hit her at the shoulder like a whip stroke.

God, she already saw the headlines: Denmark's top striker out of tournament due to injury! She just hoped that despite this highly unprofessional move her team’s coach and manager would still feel loyal enough to her to come up with something that allegedly happened during a training that they could tell the press in case she fell down...

She heard a suppressed giggle from above. She looked up. Magda was leaning across the railing of the balcony, apparently finding all of this highly amusing.

"I never thought you'd really come!" she finally managed to get out.

"Well, I did! Shall I leave again or are you going to help me out here?!"

When Pernille half climbed half fell over the railing of the balcony, she ended up in Magda’s arms, both of them giggling now, silly and happily. This was ridiculous, but what did that matter when they knew that what this hug would proceed to would finally not have to stop halfway again. 

“You’re really here!”

“Yes, I am!”

Magda looked out over the lawn surrounding the hotel. “We should really get inside before anyone sees us!”

She took Pernille’s hand and pulled her into the room.

They were alone, sure that they were out of anybody’s sight, for the first time in what felt like an eternity.

“I’m so glad you’re here!”, Magda whispered, before their lips found each other. Oh, how they had yearned for this! All the relieve after weeks of longing went into that kiss.

She needed to get out of here early enough in the morning when it was still dark. She really shouldn't fall asleep here afterwards… When Magda's hands started to sneak under her shirt, Pernille’s brain needed all its capacities for other things.

\--------

Even in the drowsiness of just waking up she immediately became aware of Magda’s body nestled at her site, her arm around her waist, her gentle breath at her shoulder. For a second she just enjoyed the warmth and closeness she had missed for so...

Shit! She remembered where she was… Fuck! It was light already and… She realised what had woken her up when she heard a rumble again.

She lifted her head because Magda’s hair was blocking her view to where the sound came from. Magda started to stir beside her, waking up now as well.

The sound was coming from the door. Oh, yes... She remembered some more...

At some point it had occurred to them that Frido might wake up and might decide to come back to her room. It would hardly help that the door was locked, since this was Frido’s room. She had a key.

They had put the two available chairs in front of the door, which should at least give them a forewarning and some time. Well, the forewarning was just long enough to wake her up and let her sort out where she was, but there was certainly not a chance to get out of this very obvious situation, before…

At the second try the door simply pushed the chairs back, one of them got knocked over, and Frido got in.

Magda’s eyes flew open. She looked at Pernille disoriented for a second, before she also grasped the situation. “Fuck!” Magda mouthed at her. For a moment Pernille considered to disappear under the blanket and hope for the best, but since the room was as bright as day, there was really no point.

“What the…!” Frido had apparently discovered that there were two instead of one blond head on her roommate's pillow. She hastily closed the door behind herself.

She stepped closer. “Well... Look at that!”

Magda had a wry smile on her face when she turned around to face her teammate. “Hi, Frido!”, she said.

Frido’s face was clearly fighting an internal fight whether to settle on highly bewildered or highly amused.

“You of all people, Magda! This is absolutly fucking brilliant!” She seemed to have settled for highly amused. “You know... The night is supposed to be used for resting! And instead Miss Discipline is having some fun with Denmark’s team captain! Hi Pernille!”

Pernille lifted her hand as a greeting, while her other hand held the blanket up to her chest.

“Well, you didn’t exactly seem to take your necessary resting time very seriously either last night, did you?” Magda didn’t seem to find this funny at all. She leaned over the edge of the bed and fished up a T-shirt from the floor that she put on.

Pernille hastily got up and snatched a heap of clothes up from the floor that she assumed was mostly hers. She sat down on the bed again and hurried to get dressed. This was embarrassing enough for her, but she knew Magda well enough to know that for her this was downright mortifying. She had to be fuming with anger. Not with Frido for teasing her necessarily but with herself for letting herself get caught in this situation. She was very eager to be professional. She was very proud of her reputation to be the most determined and goal oriented person anyone had ever met. Which didn’t go well together with getting caught skipping much-needed resting time for amorous encounters with her girlfriend. 

As so often Magda dealt with this in a highly reasonable way and had apparently decided to launch a counter-attack. “Not going to bed when you’re obviously tired is not very professional either!” she hissed at Frido.

Pernille didn’t have time for this right now. “Girls!” She interrupted the bickering Swedes. “So we all weren’t very reasonable tonight. Alright! Can we focus on the main problem now?” She pointed out of the balcony window. Behind the lawn surrounding the hotel was a busy street that was already highly frequented even this early in the morning. “I need to get out of here! And there is no chance I can get out the way I got in without being seen!” 

Frido stared at her. “That’s how you got in!? You seriously climbed up there!? This is getting better and better!”

“Frido, please, stop it! I need to be at breakfast in 30 minutes!”

Magda grabbed some more clothes from the floor and hastily got dressed. She took a look out of the window as well. “Yeah... I think we have better chances to get you out of here, when we use the stairs.”

“I don’t think the hotel people can distinguish all of us anyway!” Frido had apparently decided to be a part of the plotting. “If they see three blonde girls in Sweden tracksuits… I hardly think they will be able to tell that there is one among them who they haven't seen here previously. We just need to avoid meeting anyone from our team somehow!”

Magda went over to her suitcase and dug out her second tracksuit and threw it to Pernille.

Pernille sighed. She knew this wasn’t the time to consider any national loyalty. She put on the blue-yellow tracksuit without any further discussion.

They snug out of the room. The corridor was empty. They almost got to the stairs when immediately behind them a door opened.

Pernille succeeded to squeeze into the door frame of the neighbouring room. Magda backed up against her, barely covering her. Over Magda’s shoulder Pernille vaguely recognised the guy coming out of the room as someone from the Swedish medical team. There wasn’t a chance he wouldn’t see her, when he walked past them on the way to the stairs. 

Frido reacted within a split of a second. “Great that I see you! Do you think you could take a look at that toe again? You know, that I got stepped on during the game on Thursday?”

The medic looked it her surprised. “That was three days ago!? You never said anything about it again!”

“Yes, it started to hurt again last night! Odd, isn’t it?”

Magda and Pernille heard the voices fading away when Frido dragged the medic down the corridor.

“Now? Before breakfast?”

“Yes, please, it really hurts!”

The voices disappeared when Frido and the medic disappeared around the next corner. Pernille realised that she had held her breath. Magda turned around to her also her releasing a sigh of relief. “That was… tight!”

They got through the corridor and down the stairs without any further interruptions.

There were some people in the lobby but only hotel staff, who just saw two players of the Swedish team in their tracksuit, one of them with very much of her hair hanging in her face, walk through the lobby, probably to get some fresh air before breakfast.

The minute they got out of the door they broke into a trot, putting a distance between themselves and all the people that would be able to immediately recognise who Magda had just escorted out of the hotel.

They disappeared into the next small back alley. A van was parked at the side of the street. Pernille got into the space between the van and the wall of a house and Magda blocked the view to the mainstreet

“God, this was worse than trying to sneak to the boys’ rooms during an 8th grade class trip!” Pernille said, while she got out of the Sweden tracksuit.

Magda grinned at her. “Well… I never did that... And I never understood why the other girls thought it was so exciting… And I think I got a first vague idea that the real question was why I didn’t!”

Pernille put her arms around Magda’s neck. “I’m very glad you obviously have a very clear idea now!”

They held each other in a tight embrace for some time. They could finally just enjoy the comfortable closeness again. During the last weeks every hug had just sparked additional desires that they knew wouldn't be satisfied. They had gotten a lot out of their system this night.

“You know what?” Magda whispered in Pernille’s hair. “I don’t think this was unreasonable at all! I don’t think I have felt this rested and relaxed in a long time.”

Pernille chuckled at her shoulder. “Yeah, maybe we should make a suggestion for an addition to our recovery program…”

“Well…” Magda pretended to seriously consider the suggestion. “I don’t think I’ll get that through. Everybody would know that I would add to Denmark’s recovery that way as well and we could still meet in this tournament, so…”

Pernille smiled. “I need to get going!” She hugged Magda one last time and then started to trot back to her hotel. Magda looked after her. Before Pernille turned around the corner she ran a few steps backwards to wave at Magda again.

When she entered the mainstreet she gathered speed. She really shouldn’t miss breakfast. She was really, really hungry.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think! Getting feedback is sooo motivating! So if you want more stories soon... :-] Either here in the comments or on tumblr (erika---k).


End file.
